Post by wendytorrancev1 on Jul 15, 2022 20:30:35 GMT -5
Hello all my lovies!!!
I hope everyone is doing well and is safe, happy, and about to enjoy their weekends! I am sipping on a glass of wine (a crisp Chablis) and making chicken piccata as I type this. I wish I could make enough for everyone on this forum.
I had a question about Tori. IMHO, I think Tori was done kinda dirty in the WWF.
I remember her vaguely from the early 1990s as Terri Power. She had the "I've Got the Power" by Snap theme song. One of my older brothers used to watch entertainment wrestling (and one of them actually wrestled legitimately in high school and college) way back then, so you saw a lot of that on Saturday afternoons when all five of us kids would fight over the big screen TV in the living room (god, I'm dating myself here. Does anyone else remember those big ass big screen TVs from the late '80s/early '90s with that hideous wood panelling? What a time to be alive. Music was soooooo much better then for starters. Senior Millennial here).
Tori debuted in the WWF as an avid fan of Sable, giving her a rose before the start of Sable's matches. Tori was completely enamored by Sable and at one point wanted to be Sable. Ultimately, Sable got fed up with Tori following her from town to town as well as Tori's "advances". I think they were trying to go with the whole "lesbian" subplot there, but then decided against it when they figured that may be too "risque" for TV. After all, it was the 1990s and that sort of thing would have (wrongly) landed the WWF in hot water. Either way, Sable turned on Tori, got caught up in her own ego, and then challenged Tori to a match against her at (that awful event) Wrestlemania XV.
The match itself...was horrendous to say the least. Both women botch simple moves that a child could perform, and I covered it in depth in another thread of mine a few months ago when I rewatched it. Sable tried to do an awful looking crossbody from the apron on Tori that was 15 feet away from her, but still somehow connected, while Tori was wearing some weird looking Giant Gonzales-esque ring attire that was just so bizarre.
You can read my true thoughts on the entire match here: officialfan.proboards.com/thread/618474/watched-again-sable-tori-wrestlemania
After that, Sable was stripped of the title (I have heard rumors is because she was going to leave the WWF with the title) in an evening gown match (ugh) against Debra, with Shawn Michaels being the deciding factor. Tori basically disappeared for a while.
Tori came back somehow as the number 1 contender to the WWF Women's Championship and openly challenged Ivory. It was around this point that Ivory turned heel. The two got into a singles match which was leaps and bounds better than Tori's match against Sable 4 and a half months earlier. It was mostly because Ivory carried Tori for the most part in the match, although I will say that Tori's in ring work had gotten substansibly better at this point as well. Tori was also sporting some very '90s wrestling attire that wasn't bizarre.
That's that, but the match had an awful finish with Luna Vachon showing up and chasing Ivory out of the ring. I don't remember much from Summerslam 1999 besides the whole The Rock vs. Billy Gunn match (in which Dwayne killed any chance for Monty to be taken seriously), but if I were in attendance during this match, I'd be hella pissed because of that finish alone.
Then came her whole relationship with Kane and she basically stopped wrestling. She just became a valet. I also remember vaguely that after Tori spent that Christmas weekend with X-Pac (X-Pac and Tori Christmas Story), she started freaking out about male who approached her. LOL. It made for some very weird hijinks, whatwith Kane getting all pissed and challenging these people to matches. I think I remember he had a match against Test and Mark Henry, but I can't recall the rest. I think even The Rock was part of that, even though he just said "excuse me" or something to Tori to get into the locker room or something. Hell, I don't remember all the specifics. I'm old.
Then we all know what happened next. X-Pac TURNED AROUND and stole Kane's girl. Tori turned heel, joined DX, and then talked so much shit about Kane. She was the "Green Goddess" through and through. However, she was also true blue, as she would do what she could to ensure that X-Pac got a victory, including slapping the shit out of Paul Bearer at No Way Out 2000. I died laughing at that for 20 minutes and my boyfriend at the time was all "Ssshhh!!!! Sssshhhh!! Wendy what is wrong with you!?" We were high (senior year of high school and all, Sunday night, 3.8 GPA, my parents let me do WTF I pleased by that point and depending on when it premiered, I had just turned 18) watching that PPV, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Anyway, Tori got put through a table by Bubba Ray Dudley (I think) at King of the Ring 2000, after DX (or what they were reduced to) ended up winning the match. I think X-Pac left Tori in the dumpster or some other such nonsense and Bubba found her and then put her through a table. That was when the Dudleyz were all about putting women through tables, which was a weird fetish of theirs.
Tori then disappeared again. She came back briefly to confront X-Pac while he was sitting around, chillin, drinking a beer at WWF New York. Tori got in his face, screaming at him, with her finally slapping him for failing to protect her. X-Pac was ultimately humiliated.
Again, Tori disappeared. She later came back as The Black Ninja, assisting Raven in his numerous WWF Hardcore title defenses. People would try to unmask her, but were unsuccessful. Raven got into a feud with Crash Holly as Crash was bouncing back and forth between being European Champion, Hardcore Champion, and competing for the Light-Heavyweight Championship (that's another story for another time). During the match, Molly Holly (who trained Stephanie McMahon, and I never saw any Molly influence in her in ring work, but okay), inserted herself in the ring after The Black Ninja tried to stop Molly, but Molly had unmasked her. Finally, the three month saga was over. We now found out that The Black Ninja was in fact Tori (with an awesome new do) was indeed The Black Ninja all along.
Did we get any follow up to this? Hell no.
And that's my point. Tori was heavily misused in the WWF. They gave the WWF Women's Championship to people like The Kat and Debra. I mean, I get it, at that point in time when Tori was around, the title was an utter joke. I mean, you had Harvey Goddamn Wippleman as the Women's Champion at one point before Jackie (and I love Jacqueline) whooped his ass, taking the title from him.
I'm not trying to sit here and start a "Feel sorry for Tori" thread or anything, but I think had the WWF put more time and effort into developing her (after her shoulder injury and subsequent surgery), she would have been a pretty well rounded competitor. I think the WWF/WWE or whatever they want to go by now did her kinda dirty by not allowing her at least one WWF Women's title run (with Luna and Nicole Bass added as well) that she could have benefited from instead of being regulated to "enhancement talent" and then "valet".
I mean Tori wasn't the best, however, she was far from the worst at that era. Then again, I don't know the extent of her injury to her shoulder and what the surgery did, so that could have been career ending, however, the WWF did a very dirty tactic in revealing who The Black Ninja was and then just leaving us on that. I would have liked to see a short lived feud between Molly Holly and Tori, right before that whole crappy Invasion plot took hold.
Anyway, I've gabbed on for far too long. I love you all and I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!
I hope everyone is doing well and is safe, happy, and about to enjoy their weekends! I am sipping on a glass of wine (a crisp Chablis) and making chicken piccata as I type this. I wish I could make enough for everyone on this forum.
I had a question about Tori. IMHO, I think Tori was done kinda dirty in the WWF.
I remember her vaguely from the early 1990s as Terri Power. She had the "I've Got the Power" by Snap theme song. One of my older brothers used to watch entertainment wrestling (and one of them actually wrestled legitimately in high school and college) way back then, so you saw a lot of that on Saturday afternoons when all five of us kids would fight over the big screen TV in the living room (god, I'm dating myself here. Does anyone else remember those big ass big screen TVs from the late '80s/early '90s with that hideous wood panelling? What a time to be alive. Music was soooooo much better then for starters. Senior Millennial here).
Tori debuted in the WWF as an avid fan of Sable, giving her a rose before the start of Sable's matches. Tori was completely enamored by Sable and at one point wanted to be Sable. Ultimately, Sable got fed up with Tori following her from town to town as well as Tori's "advances". I think they were trying to go with the whole "lesbian" subplot there, but then decided against it when they figured that may be too "risque" for TV. After all, it was the 1990s and that sort of thing would have (wrongly) landed the WWF in hot water. Either way, Sable turned on Tori, got caught up in her own ego, and then challenged Tori to a match against her at (that awful event) Wrestlemania XV.
The match itself...was horrendous to say the least. Both women botch simple moves that a child could perform, and I covered it in depth in another thread of mine a few months ago when I rewatched it. Sable tried to do an awful looking crossbody from the apron on Tori that was 15 feet away from her, but still somehow connected, while Tori was wearing some weird looking Giant Gonzales-esque ring attire that was just so bizarre.
You can read my true thoughts on the entire match here: officialfan.proboards.com/thread/618474/watched-again-sable-tori-wrestlemania
After that, Sable was stripped of the title (I have heard rumors is because she was going to leave the WWF with the title) in an evening gown match (ugh) against Debra, with Shawn Michaels being the deciding factor. Tori basically disappeared for a while.
Tori came back somehow as the number 1 contender to the WWF Women's Championship and openly challenged Ivory. It was around this point that Ivory turned heel. The two got into a singles match which was leaps and bounds better than Tori's match against Sable 4 and a half months earlier. It was mostly because Ivory carried Tori for the most part in the match, although I will say that Tori's in ring work had gotten substansibly better at this point as well. Tori was also sporting some very '90s wrestling attire that wasn't bizarre.
That's that, but the match had an awful finish with Luna Vachon showing up and chasing Ivory out of the ring. I don't remember much from Summerslam 1999 besides the whole The Rock vs. Billy Gunn match (in which Dwayne killed any chance for Monty to be taken seriously), but if I were in attendance during this match, I'd be hella pissed because of that finish alone.
Then came her whole relationship with Kane and she basically stopped wrestling. She just became a valet. I also remember vaguely that after Tori spent that Christmas weekend with X-Pac (X-Pac and Tori Christmas Story), she started freaking out about male who approached her. LOL. It made for some very weird hijinks, whatwith Kane getting all pissed and challenging these people to matches. I think I remember he had a match against Test and Mark Henry, but I can't recall the rest. I think even The Rock was part of that, even though he just said "excuse me" or something to Tori to get into the locker room or something. Hell, I don't remember all the specifics. I'm old.
Then we all know what happened next. X-Pac TURNED AROUND and stole Kane's girl. Tori turned heel, joined DX, and then talked so much shit about Kane. She was the "Green Goddess" through and through. However, she was also true blue, as she would do what she could to ensure that X-Pac got a victory, including slapping the shit out of Paul Bearer at No Way Out 2000. I died laughing at that for 20 minutes and my boyfriend at the time was all "Ssshhh!!!! Sssshhhh!! Wendy what is wrong with you!?" We were high (senior year of high school and all, Sunday night, 3.8 GPA, my parents let me do WTF I pleased by that point and depending on when it premiered, I had just turned 18) watching that PPV, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Anyway, Tori got put through a table by Bubba Ray Dudley (I think) at King of the Ring 2000, after DX (or what they were reduced to) ended up winning the match. I think X-Pac left Tori in the dumpster or some other such nonsense and Bubba found her and then put her through a table. That was when the Dudleyz were all about putting women through tables, which was a weird fetish of theirs.
Tori then disappeared again. She came back briefly to confront X-Pac while he was sitting around, chillin, drinking a beer at WWF New York. Tori got in his face, screaming at him, with her finally slapping him for failing to protect her. X-Pac was ultimately humiliated.
Again, Tori disappeared. She later came back as The Black Ninja, assisting Raven in his numerous WWF Hardcore title defenses. People would try to unmask her, but were unsuccessful. Raven got into a feud with Crash Holly as Crash was bouncing back and forth between being European Champion, Hardcore Champion, and competing for the Light-Heavyweight Championship (that's another story for another time). During the match, Molly Holly (who trained Stephanie McMahon, and I never saw any Molly influence in her in ring work, but okay), inserted herself in the ring after The Black Ninja tried to stop Molly, but Molly had unmasked her. Finally, the three month saga was over. We now found out that The Black Ninja was in fact Tori (with an awesome new do) was indeed The Black Ninja all along.
Did we get any follow up to this? Hell no.
And that's my point. Tori was heavily misused in the WWF. They gave the WWF Women's Championship to people like The Kat and Debra. I mean, I get it, at that point in time when Tori was around, the title was an utter joke. I mean, you had Harvey Goddamn Wippleman as the Women's Champion at one point before Jackie (and I love Jacqueline) whooped his ass, taking the title from him.
I'm not trying to sit here and start a "Feel sorry for Tori" thread or anything, but I think had the WWF put more time and effort into developing her (after her shoulder injury and subsequent surgery), she would have been a pretty well rounded competitor. I think the WWF/WWE or whatever they want to go by now did her kinda dirty by not allowing her at least one WWF Women's title run (with Luna and Nicole Bass added as well) that she could have benefited from instead of being regulated to "enhancement talent" and then "valet".
I mean Tori wasn't the best, however, she was far from the worst at that era. Then again, I don't know the extent of her injury to her shoulder and what the surgery did, so that could have been career ending, however, the WWF did a very dirty tactic in revealing who The Black Ninja was and then just leaving us on that. I would have liked to see a short lived feud between Molly Holly and Tori, right before that whole crappy Invasion plot took hold.
Anyway, I've gabbed on for far too long. I love you all and I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!
